Scientific metaphysics and social science

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s11229-023-04358-1.pdf(1.19 MB)
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Date
2023-10-27
Authors
Ross, Don
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Springer Nature Ltd.
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10.1007/s11229-023-04358-1
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Abstract
Recently, philosophers have developed an extensive literature on social ontology that applies methods and concepts from analytic metaphysics. Much of this is entirely abstracted from, and unconcerned with, social science. However, Epstein (2015) argues explicitly that analytic social metaphysics, provided its account of ontological ‘grounding’ is repaired in specific ways, can rescue social science from explanatory impasses into which he thinks it has fallen. This version of analytic social ontology thus directly competes with radically naturalistic alternatives, in a way that helps to clarify what makes some metaphysics genuinely scientific (that is, part of the scientific enterprise and worldview). I consider this competition, marshal considerations against the value to social science of analytic metaphysics, and sketch a contrasting scientific metaphysics for understanding the implications of revisionist social ontology in unified scientific ontology.
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Keywords
Philosophy of social science , Social ontology , Scientific metaphysics , Analytic metaphysics , Supervenience
Citation
Ross, D (2023) 'Scientific metaphysics and social science', Synthese, 202, 146 (34pp). doi: 10.1007/s11229-023-04358-1
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https://hdl.handle.net/10468/15179
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Philosophy - Journal Articles
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© 2023, the Author. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.